Preparing for the high holy days in a world of AI

There is a well-known Chassidic parable about a rabbinic master who said that he’d learnt three lessons from an infant and seven lessons from a thief. From the baby he learnt to feel satisfied by what was given, not to stay quiet, and to cry when one wanted something. From the thief, he learnt that the real work takes place at night when no one is watching, that one must be willing to take great risks to get what one wants, to take notice of the little details in order to achieve an objective, to work hard, to be loyal to partners, and to be patient and try again if one isn’t successful the first time. 

This rabbinic tale always struck me as inspirational. It is based on a principle we often see in Chassidic storytelling; that there is something to learn from every interaction and everything in the world around us. Of course, the interactions that are more present and more constant in our lives should be the sources of greater inspiration and lesson-building. In this way, our daily lives are an ongoing search for meaning and we have the chance to gain strength and direction from nearly every occurrence presented to us. 

I would think that if that Chassidic master were alive, he would be compelled to look at probably the greatest technological and lifestyle phenomenon in our world today, the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), and would ask how it can impact our path to teshuvah (repentance). 

Let’s begin by focusing on the known negative aspects of AI. It is, by definition, artificial. It isn’t real and it is creating worlds, impressions, and virtual realities that are, in essence, fake. Most dangerously, these fake worlds are often, and increasingly effectively, masked as real. AI exists as a creative tool that has answers to the most difficult and vexing questions of the human condition, and presents itself almost as devoid of bias or failure. We are led to believe that the AI models are here only to serve our interests and where it fails, it isn’t a failure of the model but only of those who input the requests. 

AI succeeds in replacing some of the most valuable human attributes, hard work and dedication, by providing complex solutions to problems in seconds. Coming to those very same conclusions would previously have taken hours or days of research and verification. AI has the power to deceive in truly dangerous ways and make us think we care, or don’t care, about things that should or should not have value in our lives. Truth as a concept is no longer what it was in the pre-AI world. We hear examples every day of how this development is changing our lives in ways we certainly aren’t always comfortable with. 

In this sense, AI serves as a valuable metaphor to prepare for this introspective time of year. Because repentance is just as much about understanding the inherent dangers in our world that we need to avoid as it is about pursuing the good. Avoidance and not falling victim to evil temptations are a critical aspect of the teshuvah process and at the very heart of purifying our souls, both practically and spiritually. 

But to focus exclusively on the dangers and pitfalls represented by AI would also be a major mistake because there is a great deal of good in this modern revolution. 

Ultimately – and hopefully it will always remain so – AI is guided by human interactions, prompts, and questions. The success of our chat results are impacted by fine-tuning our inputs. When treated with reason and caution, entry into the world of AI can expose us to a universe of discovery and new perspectives and motivate schools of thought, activism, and practice that we might have never considered before. Unlike human interactions, AI can be built to never forget and doesn’t judge our thirst for other perspectives but rather works with us to answer the deepest of questions. Its access to worlds and trains of thought previously far beyond our immediate capacity can certainly inspire us and help us fine-tune who we are as moral and ethical beings. 

This avenue of opportunity reminds me of the first lessons of the remarkable work of Jewish moral thought, Mesilat Yesharim (The Path of the Just), which teaches that the first traits we need to embrace as Jews are caution, diligence, and purity. AI can be oriented along those paths, and it is incumbent upon us to recognise that opportunity when we confront this technology and all its power. 

Recognising the very deep complexity that exists within this modern revolution, AI is perhaps one of the greatest metaphors for the good and bad that exist in our modern world and is therefore a deeply apt area of thought as we approach our tefillot on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. 

AI, like we as people, can be applied for evil; to deceive, to take advantage, to waste critical resources and time – and even worse. But it is also a tool for repair, to better our world, to build relationships, to explore and strengthen our minds and our connections to spirituality and religion. 

Like everything in the human experience, and certainly when it comes to Jewish identity and connection with Hashem, achieving true repentance and purity demands a high degree of personal restraint and judgement of what is right and wrong, good and bad, safe and dangerous. But if we properly equip ourselves, our children, and our families with an appreciation for the power of this tool, and then use it as a mirror and metaphor for who we are as individuals, perhaps it will help us better achieve that level of teshuvah we all so desire, and enter us into a new year where we will be blessed with happiness, justice, and all that we hope for. 

• Rabbi Yuval Cherlow is the director of the Tzohar Center for Jewish Ethics and a founder of the Tzohar Rabbinical Organization.